AWTY 103 - The Iidaverse (Ping Pong: The Animation with Paul Gonzales)

Video.

Hello and welcome to our Beat there yet in exploration and education and anime. I'm your anime idiot, patrick dugan.

I'm an anime expert, dana hollander.

And I'm brenda mccullough, your anime forest gump.

And I'm a tiny ball enthusiast, Paul gonzalez.

Love those small things. So tiny.

Just those small friends.

Fit them all in your hand.

Throw them wherever you want.

Oh, God. I'm just getting flashbacks to going to a dentist and then getting a bouncy ball afterwards after, like, a teeth cleaning and then going into a small bathroom at my parents house where it had no windows, so it's just like, very close. And I just turned the lights off and just rocket that bouncy ball around the room and just get pelted by. Couldn't tell you why. Couldn't tell you why I did it.

Okay, all right, then. No follow up questions. In that case.

Wait, though, wait. There was a place where I used to live. It was called scooter's jungle. And it was like a grown up play place thing. And they had this room where you would go in it was just like a concrete block in the middle of the bigger play area where you would just go in and throw hundreds of bouncy balls against the wall.

Oh, no.

And when I was out of school.

I went to a party there and these guys took their shirts off and went in there and I was like, what the fuck is wrong with you guys?

Sounds like a pvp enabled zone.

There's absolute chaos. Continuous chip damage because the balls just ricochet off.

You have to sign a waiver just.

To look at the box. It's all funny game, so someone loses an eye. Anyway, why are we talking about small balls?

Well, today we are watching paul's very favorite anime and also an anime that I love. Now, ping pong, the animation.

It's been a long time coming.

It sure has. It's been on our recommendation column for a while. And we're sitting at paul's desk, and we have some ping pong art right now.

All hail. All hail. So I take it you enjoy it?

I love Ping Pong. I watched it, I think, in 2014. I know I graduated around that time.

Okay.

I remember I watched half of it, and then I invited all my friends to my friend's house, and then we all watched it together. And I've watched it like, twice a year since.

Twice a year?

Something like that. I recently watched it again.

Yeah.

With me.

Yeah. Before that, too.

Yeah, he has the bluray.

Yeah, I bought the bluray. It's the best decision I've ever made.

A worthy investment for that amount of use.

Oh, yeah, that's dedication.

Yeah. And so I just watched it all recently for the first time after him not pestering me about it, but being like, you should watch Ping pong because I was nervous. I was so nervous I wouldn't like it. So I did. And it was good. It's very good. And I hope you guys like it. I'm very nervous.

I mean, you can continue speaking to each other.

Yes.

It's not like too Ralph or anything, right? Like it's fine. You'll like it.

Cross.

We follow 17 different ping pong balls all their lives converging together in one spot.

Yeah, that's why it's called ping pong. It goes back and forth between storylines so quickly.

You cannot it's so hard to understand. Have either of you heard of this Duke?

Only from you and Paul.

Pretty obscure. It's not very popular. I guess I should say. It's not obscure. Oh, sorry.

No, go ahead.

I was going to say it got overshadowed because it came out literally the same season as haiku. It got overshadowed.

What?

Pretty boys doing sports.

As someone who watched or read all of haiq, I get it. But also haqq too. Yeah, we got very pretty that's on that list. That's going to be a special one we got to tackle. We got a plan with that one. Guys. Get to meet my boy tanaka anyway. Yeah, I've heard of High Q or sorry, just those volleyball boys. I've heard of ping mini high Q.

What this show is called, right?

Table Volleyball. I remember seeing bits of ping pong and all the art being advertised and like video clips of it because animation is just very unique, especially for anime. So I remember seeing clips of it when it came out, but I don't remember hearing much about people talking about it. Not like haiki or demon slayer or some big anime that everyone's talking about it. But I do know a lot of the artists I follow on Twitter were very much like, yo, this show slaps.

Yeah, it's very cool.

I wanted to hold off watching it till the podcast because I'll probably first throw it.

Yeah, that's so flattering to me. I'm going to wait.

From what I saw with just like the stills and some of the videos, I'm just like, the animation alone has my interest. I'm going to watch this eventually. And then I saw it on your list. I was like, all right, I'll hold off until we cover it.

Yeah, it's definitely not pretty. It's not High Q. I feel like even if it didn't come out the same season as High Q, I feel like people would still look at it.

And be like, yeah, there's a reason a lot of anime kind of looks similar because it works. And like, people know like, people are used to this, but if the animation style is like, challenging, that's good to sway a lot of people before they even give it a shot. But I'm excited.

Me too.

But yeah. So we're going to dive into episodes two, three and four.

Yes, sir.

I have a pressing news alert. I just received a letter from Brendan mccullough in the mail. What?

What?

Truly on the break, sam just poked her head in and handed me a letter.

Absolutely forgot about it.

I'm on the show.

I super forgot about this.

What?

I mailed it like two days ago and I already forgot. All right.

I'm so nervous.

It does not warrant this at all.

It's a nude.

It is a meme, a precious meme sent to me. It says, I'm Harry champ and I'm a man destined to be king.

Yes.

He used the great Us postal Service to send me a Zoids me.

I'm so glad this has to stay. This is documented. Oh, my God.

Support your local post office.

Listener. Please mail in everyone. I'm going to give you brendan's address. No letter.

Oh, dude, you can turn it over. You got zoe.

All right. I'm so glad we were all here for this.

Truly beautiful. But yeah, we have a fun show today. But I needed to share this because I knew what was coming instead of a bitch.

I love it.

I'm glad.

I got a lot of times killing this quarantine. Guys, I'm bored.

If anything should interrupt this episode, I'm glad it was that.

Now I'm disruptive in different mediums.

So ping pong.

Ping pong. Yes.

What do you think?

Well, we have to talk about it.

Okay.

But yeah. So, full disclosure, at least, I did watch the first episode just for full context. At dana's request.

Yes.

We went above and beyond for ping pong.

I'm so glad you did because I was just so concerned. I was like, well, if they like it, I don't want them to have to go back and watch episode one. And also, there's only eleven episodes, so it does provide important context. But episodes two, three and four are like more, you know what I mean?

Yeah. It's not like a super complicated show, but I would have been confused by some of the characters dynamics without episode one.

Right.

That's why with one piece, I recommended you guys go back and watch all 834 episodes.

And I'm still working on it.

All right. Shall we discuss? All right, so just to quickly recap episode one, our main characters well, the main two really, are Smile and peco. They are on a ping pong team at a high school together their first years, they hear about another high school inviting a popular, successful Chinese player onto their team named Wing eg Kong. So they go there to see him, and they don't see him in the practice room. They start playing together. And then wenge hears them playing and he's like, oh, one of those people is super talented and he's letting the other person win. So he goes down there and he wants to play against Smile, but Smile does not want to. And he beats pekko really bad because pekka will play against anybody to show off. And yeah, that's pretty much where we leave. He beats peco really bad. peco cries and peco cries. peco cries when he loses.

It's a bad habit.

Get hit.

Yeah. And peco is a very talented player, but he doesn't go to practice, so that's, like, his thing.

I will say in episode one when wenge listening, he's like, I can tell that one player is going easy on the other player just by the noises of their paddles and their shoes. I'm just like, all right, this is silly, but I'll go on board with this.

I'll take it.

This episode one, I'll see where it goes, but that moment where both people are listening to it and can understand what's happening just by the sounds, I'm like, this is insane.

So in the beginning of episode two, we see peco and he's sitting at their, like, childhood dojo where they learn to play Ping Pong. And he has Ping Pong balls on his eyes. And he's just, like, laying back, and he's like, I wish I was never born.

I lost one game.

I'm done. I'm washed up.

He's a very dramatic kid. And the owner of the dojo, they just call her Old Lady. She's like, go home. You're, like, bringing down the vibe.

Killing my buzz here.

And peco is not only upset that he lost, but he's, like, rethinking it. And he can't think of wenge's weaknesses. He didn't see any. And then we see the team at the school wenge is joining, and they're, like, chatting up a storm while they're watching him practice. And he speaks Chinese, in case anybody was wondering. Everybody else speaks Japanese. Wang and his coach speak Chinese, so no one can understand him, and he can't understand anybody. And so they're talking, and he gets really upset and essentially tells them to shut up. But his coach is always who translates for him is always much kinder than wengay actually is. And he's like, I want to play against that kid with the glasses, the chopper with the glasses. And then the coach tells them that, and they're like, oh, yeah. Come over here, dude. And then it's just a little plump kid. Definitely not smile.

That's not the eda we know and love. Oh, no.

I would say that this transcends the eda trope a little.

If he has glasses, I'm calling him eda. That's as basic as that. Trope desk.

Okay.

Are we all ida?

That's the only requirement. Yes. We're all eda.

The eda was the friends we made along the way. Welcome to the eda verse.

So we see Smile sitting in a locker, and it's like a mind thing, a mind metaphor. Essentially. It's a classroom with a locker in it. And he's inside the locker, and he's talking to himself. And he's like, I like, it in here. It's quiet, and no one can bother me. But then the hero arrives, and we see, like, quotes across the screen. There's blood tastes like iron. There's hot blood flowing through his veins. And then the hero fights. Is it like a godzilla in this scene.

He fights some robots.

Is it a robot?

Like just some just bad stuff.

Kaiju.

Just some kaiju stuff.

And then he pulls Smile out of the locker and metaphorically out of his slump. Wow. And then Smile is telling the older dudes in the ping pong club where peco is because every time he's not there, they ask him and he's like, he's probably at the dojo. If you want to go get him, I will draw you a map. Like, I am not in charge of him. And then they say they're going to beat him up. And then the coach tells Smile not to play against peco anymore because he goes easy on him. And smile is like I do, do I? And the coach is like, oh, so you can't tell that you do that? And it's like and then Coach is like, all right, kid, you're going to start training with me at five in the morning every day. And he's like, I am not going to do that. And then the coach is like, well, I am the devoted husband type, so I'm willing to wait for you.

Excuse me.

The coach is such a good character. Every character in this show is fucking amazing. And we're back at the dojo, and peco is complaining about the amount of carbonation in his drink. He does this a lot, like throughout the whole series. He just talks about snacks and stuff. He's very passionate about it.

We got a seltzer snob over here.

And he asks Smile how practice was. And he's like, I bet you had to run a lot because I wasn't there. And Smile just keeps responding with and he's like, all right, well, I guess I'm going to quit ping pong. And Smile just says and he's like, come on, tell me not to. Kind of he doesn't say that, but that's obviously what he wants him to do. And then Smile says, if you want to quit, go ahead. Don't force yourself to do something you don't want to do. And peco is just like, yeah. And then peco asks how long until the championship qualifiers are. Smile says there's two months away. And then peco complains that there's no time for relaxing. The next day, Coach is sitting with peco and Smile in a classroom. And he is complaining to Smile about how he waited in the morning for four days in a row and how come won't you come train with me.

Please? High schooler, please come to school early. Why won't you please?

Isn't this thing that's super unimportant to you, really important to you?

It's important to me. Why isn't it important to you?

I also like that he says, when are you ever going to use English vocab in your life? That's stupid. You don't need that in the English vocab room with all the other students around them, like super disruptive.

Paul and I are pretty sure he is the English teacher because it's like, why else would he be in there?

He speaks a lot of English.

Yeah, okay.

I wasn't sure about that because I don't know, maybe it's just me. I had a gym teacher in high school that one time just came into my history class, sat down with a plate of chicken wings and just ate them while we watched, like a history movie and then just left.

Power move.

I just assume all gym teachers and no one I just assume all gym teachers and coaches are just super weird and just do whatever they want.

Yeah. It also is that he speaks a lot of English. I love all of his throat in English verbiage and stuff. But yeah. So Smile says ping pong and English vocab are the same to me. They're both just stuff to kill time until I die. I love that Smile doesn't care about anything. He's very apathetic, supposedly. And then it's a different time. And peco is asking Smile if he likes peanuts or caramel. And he's like, I like caramel. And then peco is like, right, it's just common sense. Who likes peanuts? And then Coach comes in and he sees Smile eating hamburger. Oh, my God, I forget who says it. Who says baga?

Peco his hamburger.

Hamburger, burger.

He teaches them how to pronounce burger.

Correctly, and he also teaches the whole Northeast how to pronounce it correctly with.

Just like the heaviest, like, r sound. It's so funny.

Burger, burger.

And then he's like, hey, Smile. Well, it's kimoto. That's his real name, not his nickname. He's like, hey, kid, you can't eat that anymore. I'm going to make your meals every day from now on because you need to eat healthy. And then he shows him his lunch. It looks great. He made him a little bento.

The love.

Yeah. And peco is like, man, that's love. And he's like, yes, love.

So weird.

Yeah. And then he's like in the staff room, and another teacher comes up to him and he's like, hey, you seem to be in a good mood. And he's like, spring has come for this old man.

It's so weird.

He's just in love with his best player.

This is a uri on ice.

And he's leaving letters in Miles Walker little love notes.

What you're thinking about?

And he's really giving Smile some, like, tough love in his training. He yells at him constantly while they're training together. And we see peco telling his club mates, like, oh, Smile hates being yelled at. Like, this is not going to end well for the coach, essentially.

I mean, who does love being yelled at?

There's some people, but very few.

Yeah. I feel like especially with sport teams, it's like sometimes the coaches just like that.

Some of the coaches are just assholes.

Yeah. So Smile gets tired of it, and he just straight up leaves. He just walks out. And peco goes with him. And they go for a walk.

I feel like with a kid who just says, I'm waiting to die. You can't motivate them much by yelling at him, threatening. I've already accepted death at 16. What else can you do?

To me, every subject is just me twiddling my thumb so I can find anything else to do with my time.

Believe me, I am not tied to this.

Yeah.

And while they're on their walk, smile talks about how everything makes him tired. Now, being around people, even Ping Pong is getting complicated, and it kind of hits. It's like, oh, boy, this child is depressed.

Yeah, clearly just clinical depression. He's like, what is this emptiness? It's like, dude, get help. Talk to anyone.

And they're sitting and looking out into the sea, and peco is like, hey, I think the coach is training you in the right way that you need to be trained. And then Smile is like, okay, but I just want to have fun. I don't care about winning. It's not important to me. And then back at practice, we see a stranger. His name is kazama, and he is from cayo Academy.

Lord lad.

Very large, very bald, very hairless.

No eyebrows, zero eyebrows, all muscle.

Shaved him off the speed.

And everyone is whispering, being like, oh, my God. He's, like, the best player around. And he wants to observe. And Coach asks him to go outside with him. And they go out, and Coach is like, Smile isn't here. Like, I know that he's who you're here to see. And cosima says he watched him play, and he was very impressed, but he lost to someone named sakama. sakuma. Sorry. And sakuma actually goes to kayo Academy. Now, we find out later that sakuma, pekko, and Smile, they all trained at the same dojo. And the coach asks him what the chances are of Smile beating cosma. And cozumel is like none. I will beat this boy. And then we see peco and Smile again, and peko is talking about how he wants to be the best Ping Pong player, number one in the world. It's his dream. Losing is no fun. So he and Smile are very different when it comes to Ping Pong. And Smile is just like, wow, what a cool line. I'll root for you.

Go team.

My note here is he just wants peco to win. He loves him so much. And there's also a funny moment where they're, like, sitting on some steps and a woman is eating a sandwich, and a bird flies down and takes it from her.

It's funny.

Quick flash of, like, a sign saying, like, birds will steal your food. Don't eat outside.

Yeah. And Smile. We're back with the training. Smile asks Coach why he's trained differently. Coach says, Because he's different from everyone else. And they do a two table training session. They set tables up next to each other, and Coach is just hitting Ping Pong balls across both tables. And Smile falls down while he's going for a ball. And he gets really upset and he's like, awards and trophies aren't worth all of this. And Coach says, there are some views you can only see once you reach the top. But Smile doesn't care. He just wants to have a good time. And then Coach challenges him to a match and he says, if you win, you don't have to train with me anymore. If I win, you get to be my dog.

Yeah, so we crossed off furry at this point, right, of dog talk here, the literal barking.

And then people in the club are like, oh, my gosh, does Coach really expect to win against Smile? Like, he's really good. And then everyone was like, well, yeah, but so was Coach back in the day. He was like a world class ping pong player. And they start playing, and Coach is, like, really aggressive with Smile because he knows that when people are aggressive with him, he gets scared and, like, upset, anxious, essentially. And writing this made me emotional. Essentially, through this match, he wants to teach Smile not to accept defeat. Like, he has to feel the negative emotions of a loss and not feel indifferent because at this point, that's part of his issue is that he's just not feeling anything. And coaches, like, really going at this game and he's winning. And then Smile retreats back into the locker in his mind that someone is coming. And Smile loses the first match, and then he chants, the hero appears three times, which is what he's supposed to do if he's ever in a bind. And then peco is like, Smile hasn't changed. He's still soft, weak. And then the second game and the match starts and coaches being aggressive and goading him, really just constantly, constantly yelling shit at him. And Smile is getting more and more upset. He is, like, thinking, like, why do people do this to me? I don't get angry. I don't laugh. I'm just here, people have nothing to make fun of me for, yet I'm constantly made fun of.

I'm a neutral ball of clay, and I wish to be treated as such.

Look at this dumb clay. Look at this dumb round shape. No points at it at all. What a fucking idiot.

And this time when the locker opens, there's a robot. Because Smile is a robot, if that's what everybody calls him, then that's what he's going to be. And he's kind of reached his breaking point, and he tells the coach to shut up, and he gets really aggressive with his playing. And while the game goes on, they do a lot of split screen stuff in the show. And so in one part of the screen, we see the match going on. And then in another part of the screen, there's a flashback of peco teaching Smile how to hold a paddle when they were little. And then Coach falls down and he's dizzy. And Smile is like, are you going to get up? Do you see a futon here?

Damn.

And then the coach is like, okay, I'm getting back up. I'm getting back up. And then the game goes on. And as Smile hits the winning return, he asks himself, can I be like you? Oh, my God, I love them. And there's a flashback of him asking peco when they were little kids if he can be like him. I'm going to cry. I love it. He wants to win. He wants to be like peco so bad. And Smile wins the match, and he's just like, well, I'm leaving. Even though the teacher straight up fainted.

Dead on the ground, as far as he knows.

Episode two, going up against someone like 55 years younger than I'm like, yes.

Fair.

So, yeah, we pick up an episode three with Smile visiting coach on his deathbed.

Old man dead.

Gamoto goes to visit the coach, and his wife is there, and he's like, oh, do you want to come up? Do you want to visit? And he's like, no, I can't be a human with people, and runs away.

No emotions. Thank you.

I would rather die than eat dinner with a friend.

If I just almost put a guy in a hospital and his wife's like, yeah, come on, have dinner with just us. No, I'm good. I tried back out of that, too.

Fair. So we see cosma back at his rival elite school, coyote, and discussing how one of these days he's going to recruit Smile and get him on the team. Because he has so much potential, he's just wasting it at this peasant school for average children.

Disgusting.

If you're not a ping pong warrior, you might as well die.

The school also had a statue of a ping pong player outside of the school. And I was like, yo, what is this?

So we see they are going to their first championship tournament, and we see that Smile is playing the elite Chinese player wengi in his third round. And peco is facing an old opponent, an old friend from their childhood dojo days. But they're both grown up and they butt heads and they're like, I'm going to kick your ass. No, I'm going to kick your ass. Okay, so I need to say it. wenge is a he's zuko.

Okay, let's just say put it in there.

He's zuko.

Yeah. His honor is definitely on the line on that table.

Yeah, we get his backstory, but since we're talking about him now, we got to say it. Yeah. He's disgraced kicked off the Chinese national team, and he's only welcome back if he can beat all of Japan. So truly, you get your honor back when you find the avatar.

Okay. Surprisingly, also voiced by dante bosco.

Weird, strange.

I didn't know he knew Chinese.

And also has a coach that is hostile when he needs to be, but also very friendly.

That's your point. Yeah.

So, yeah, we see. Wenger is like, all these pathetic excuses for ping pong players. I'm going to be so bored here. But as he's walking through the crowd, he passes Smile. He's like the glasses boy from the gym the other day. Maybe there will be a challenge here. Now you have my attention.

I like how Smile walks by, and he's just like, nihau like, hello. And Wang is like, oh, you suddenly bitch. Because he, smile knew he was looking for him because he wanted to challenge him that day at the gym. And he's like, you motherfucker smiles of shit. Yeah.

So cosmat walks up to Smile in their team. He's like, hey, mind if I sit here and chat with the champ? And he sits with them, and they're talking about their strategies and watching one gay's first match. They're sort of going back and forth, like, dissecting his playstyle, but also his backstory of being disgraced and needing to earn his honor back. And Cozumel basically is like, hey, you're a good ping pong player, but it fucking sucks that you always consider the opponent and you don't want to hurt their feelings, so you give up and don't try so you don't hurt them. Pick up. He's like, you're doing no one any favors. And just very bluntly is like, that sucks for everyone. You're wasting everyone's time. And for one smile is like ouch. Okay. So after getting that slap in the face, smile goes and prepares for his first match. And he's talking to the coach. He's like, all right, wengay beat his first guy in ten minutes. I'll do it in five. Tell me how many points I need to win by fucking whatever. I don't care. I'm in robot mode. I'm going to wipe the floor with this guy. And we meet that fierce opponent, and it's just a very chill senior. He's like, I'm just here to have fun. I don't want to lose to a first year. But we'll take it nice and easy. And immediately he sees off, fuck this guy's just as a canon. So he absolutely destroys the senior. The senior just mentally checks out. He's like, in my mind, I'm at the beach. I don't give a shit. Just get it over with.

This guy is like, my favorite character. He comes back every once in a while. We just check in with this dan, AVIDAN looking motherfucker little story.

I did enjoy it. He's like, all right, I'll try. I'll give my beth. And after the third one, he's like, all right, I'm done. If I was that guy, I'd be the same place.

I've done wrestling tournaments at things like this with the same set up. And every once in a while, you would step up and be like, oh, this guy is the same weight as me, but all muscle instead of fat. Okay, good match. Shake hands to start. But I know this will. Be 30 seconds. But yeah, so he just straight up clowns on him and he wins. And after the victory, he like loudly goes over and is like, yeah, I don't give a shit because basing your whole life on ping pong is fucking stupid. He just loudly says it in front of the cayo team. And Cosmo is like, interesting play.

I'm the best one here, and I fucking hate it. What are you going to do about it?

This is a dumb game for babies. So we see wingay, he was watching the match. Smile hid his actual playstyle. So he's like, I'm still intrigued. He handily beat this guy, but didn't go with his chopper style. I don't know. Ping pong logistics. chopper something.

Chopper is doctoring.

Yeah. Oh, he's playing healer position. So wengie is like, okay, I got to just beat this next guy. And then I'm up for a real challenge. And we see. His opponent is just like a high school sweethearts. The guy is about to go out and he's like, I'm about to get my ass kicked by this Chinese champion. And his girlfriend's like, no, sweetie, the power of love will take us through it. You can stand up to him and just gets destroyed. And she's like, oh, fuck.

Yikes.

What's his phone number? So with that, Wenger is up next to face. Smile. So Smile, before the match, is talking with Peco. He's talking about the hero that will come to save him and sort of goes into his mental dynamic with that. I'll be honest. Went over my head a little bit. Some of his internal stuff. I feel like at this point, I was like, okay to look at. I'm sure it will get fully spelled out later.

Yeah. As the series goes on, it becomes much more clear.

Got you.

But yeah, so basically, he's like, sometimes I get to save myself. So we finally get to wenge and Smiles match. But Smile is just humming a little bitty. Just in the zone, it seems like. But wenge is like, all right, time to go to work. I finally have a challenge, but easily wins the first game and is like, but he was so good earlier.

You were the one. We were all rooting for you.

You were supposed to be the challenge.

But after the first game, Smiles like, no biggie, no biggie. Still humming, just in the zone. And just goes on and destroys the next game because he basically threw the first match so he could get a read on one game and all of his moves. So he finally has the move saying he's like, okay, I know how to beat you, and goes into robot mode.

I like that he sings his own theme song. Like, he humps it to himself and just reminded me of krunk from emperor's New Crew.

Cc his own theme.

But yeah, so he's about to he kicks his ass for Round or Smile kicks wenge ass in round two and go into the third match. But he sees wenge get berated by his coach because for the first time, he's actually losing. So the dynamic of wenge being like, nah, this is child's play. I don't need to actually try. And the coach being like, Please take this seriously. They're paying you money to be here. Please, can you just try where my career is riding on this too, please? And we finally actually see him in, like, okay, Coach, I'm scrambling at this point and seeing him get berated smile. Oh, that damn empathy comes in. That terrible thing to have if you're in the high stakes world of Ping Pong. And he throws the rest of the game. So he's out. And basically everyone can tell, including wengay. So he's like, oh, fuck. He didn't actually beat him.

This kid took fucking pity on me. What the hell?

He's a robot that calculates emotions into the equation.

Terrifying.

But yeah. And that's episode two.

Then we start off with episode four.

But, you know oh, three the second one.

The second one we watched.

It's two in my heart, which makes it very confusing when I discuss it with anyone else. So we open with episode four, and we see a smile as a kid in the dojo learning Ping pong as a little kid. And another kid slapped him across the face, saying, you're falling for that spin shot. You're blowing it. You're a navy. You shouldn't have fallen for that. And then Peco comes in, kind of defense of being like, hey, lay off of them. And we find out the little shit with glasses that smack them around is god, I wrote it down. sakuma. Damn it.

It matters because his nickname is akuma, which means demon, okay?

Because I wrote down akuma for a lot of it. And then when I looked up the character's names, it was sakuma. And I was like, I swear that's not what they're saying. Yeah, okay, they call him that makes more sense now. So it was a little flashback of the three of them when they were kids playing Ping Pong together. And it cuts back to after the tournament. And the coach slaps smile across the face too, because he's just got that face you love to hit.

So slappable this high school boy when you're an adult.

He slaps across the face, saying, like, that's for losing the match. And losing a match, like, that's bad for everyone. It's bad for you. It's bad for your opponent. It's bad for everyone that's watching and got invested in it. It was clear he threw it. And he says, they kind of bicker a bit back and forth for a while. And he says, like, you know what? You either try to win or you quit. You got no other options. And smiles like, all right, cool. I quit.

See you finally and out.

I freed him.

Yeah, it's like, coach. He told you that, like, day one, that he does not get don't give him that option. He'll take it any chance he gets. But we see off camera, Peco or not off camera, but a little behind him, Peco is walking away, talking about winning and how winning is the best feeling for him, and it's the only thing that matters. So he can't relate to Smile in that regard. We see Lady tamara, who was the lady who owns the dojo that they all played out when they were kids. And she's kind of they're given Coach crap. Apparently they were old, I guess, either teammates or old rivals. And they played together back in the day.

Yeah.

So she's kind of giving Coach crap of like, you know, that's not going to work on them. You know, berating him is not going to motivate him to be good at it anymore. So, like, slapping around and decorating him in front of everyone else is not helping anyone. And the coach is like, yeah, not wrong. And then we cut to wenge get chewed out by his coach kind of saying, like, you got to focus. You got to get ready. And wenge realizing to himself, like, Smile lost on purpose. Coach is like, nah, you did good. You beat them. Like, you got to keep that momentum going for the next match because you got that coming up. And then meanwhile, we see Peco getting ready for his match against Sakama, who's also at ko Academy, who I think is required that everyone shaves their heads because everyone's yeah. bald. And that's weird bald.

I don't do they ever talk about it?

No. How do you not think about that?

They do in episode three when they get to the tournament, they're like, oh, fucking groham domes over there good.

Because it's so dynamic, I guess.

Yeah, truly. For the speed, it's real bizarre.

It's become the ping pong ball.

But yeah, they're on, like, black uniforms, and the whole team has shaved heads. And it's just like, wow. I don't know if it's intimidating, but it's definitely a look.

Sure, it suits some better than others. Some being Cosmo and that's like, it.

Yeah, everyone else is like because, yeah, they're still in high school. They're still like kids. Except for Cosmo.

Looks like a freak.

Yeah, except for cosma, who is a grown ass adult. And even some of the kids, like, other players are talking about them like, yo, that dude's definitely 30. I definitely knew some people in high school, like, that were like, oh, that's not a teacher. That's a student. My mistake. So, yeah, peck is getting ready for his match. And I guess before match, they exchange paddles to make sure they're both official and valid or just to get an idea of how the paddle is going to come into play. That surprised me. I didn't think that would make up as much of a difference in ping pong.

But, yeah, they talk about the differences between paddles and the rubbers and stuff.

Yeah, a lot of detail about the rubbers and stuff. And I'm like, I would not imagine in a thousand years that I'm sure it affected it, but I didn't think it would matter that much where you have to inspect the other players paddle before a game. So I also know nothing about Ping Pong, so that doesn't surprise me. And, yeah, sakamo says he's been looking forward to this rematch for years because back in the dojo, everyone looked up to pego because he was the best around. He always won and they always had to follow behind him and they were doing everything that he did. And pego always kind of gave him shit for learning about Ping Pong from a book instead of actually playing. Sakama tried to learn any way he could where Peco just kind of got it naturally and just learned from playing. So he always gave soccer one more shit for that and then they start having their match and before the match. sokimo surprised. peko's paddle is the same he's always used. And Sakama comments like, oh, yeah, ping Pong is always changing. It's always evolving. You have to keep up with it. So that's why he's got like, the newest I guess I don't want to say high tech Ping Pong battle because that sounds insane, but like, the latest technique, I guess, the latest style siri.

Hit Ball, that just made me think of spongebob where he is the spatula with port and starboard attachment.

So we see them having their match for a bit and they're going back for a good while. peck. I was kind of egging them on this whole time. Like, come on, let's do a speed match like we used to do back in the day. Let's go. Let's get into this. And the whole time, smiles there, watching him as well, kind of judging him from the sidelines. And every time Peco launches like a fastball soccer mom keeps popping it way up and like, launching it way over the table. Kind of like a lobs shot where it's falling very gently. And an easy shot to hit back for Peco. And he just keeps doing this. And as he's doing, he's getting further and further away from the table because peka is hitting it so hard. He's getting so aggressive with the shots. And as he's doing it, Peco ends up winning the first rounds. But we see pecos exhausted and soakma is fine because he was just doing those easy returns while Peco was running around and putting all his effort into the shot. So Sakama was just draining his energy the whole time.

This is how I found out I was getting into the show. Because when he was doing like, on his second lap, I was like, he's starring him out.

You see the strategy. It's a simple strategy. Peco, why don't you see it?

How can you see it?

And how can I see it and you not see it, you idiot?

That's how you get invested, blinded by nostalgia. Something we never do on this show. No, never.

When are we watching digimon again? paul's here. I got someone to back me up this time.

Moving on.

So we see Sakama gets the ball and they reset for the second match. And Sakama is like, perfectly fine. And Peco was just sweating like hell and winded. And it's clear that Sakama is like, the game's evolving. You got to pay attention. It's just not you can't be good when you're a child and be good forever. You have to evolve with it.

But Peco, peco was very much the gifted child trope.

Yeah, stunted, grope, because he was good when he was little and thought he was the best. And after that, we see the next two matches. Sakama just kind of kind of breezing the room and get a lot of shots past Peco. That wouldn't have happened in the first round. But now that Peco is all that energy, it's a lot easier. And Sakama is very smug about it, which, I mean, to be fair, he read them like a book and knew what to do. So I guess he kind of deserves to be smug. It works. So he taught Peco a lesson the hard way and yeah, we see. Yeah, because Peco had the natural talent from as a kid, Sakama always had to work hard. So he always developed a strategy and technique every time. And that's what overcame raw talent. We see that trope a lot in sports. And then we see peco's pissed after he loses. He gets very emotional anytime he loses. And it comes to the lady, tamaru tamaru talking to the coach about the old days and seeing the bad habits, remembering all the bad habits they had back when they were players. And the coach kind of says, like, yeah, you're kind of seeing it again. All in these new players, despite the stuff that changes over the years, players are going to kind of revert to the same bad habits over and over again. And the phrase people would tell Smile, that's a bad habit to get into a lot. Just with the first few episodes, we probably hear it like five or six times. So really enforcing, like, hey, don't get set in your ways when playing sport. And then they talk about how talented Smile is, but he doesn't care about winning. And the coach talks about how he wants to show Smile the options he has if he wins, just so he can see the options. He doesn't want to force them into any of them, but he just wants to show him that they're there. And tomra calls him out, being like, that's not it. You're bullshit. You know that's bullshit. Don't give me that. Don't excuse your behavior. And then we cut to cosma in the bathroom doing some sort of weird pregame ritual. We don't really see what it is, but looks like the toilet paper was folded into a flower shape.

I think he likes to be by himself before he plays.

Okay. And then we got the other players talking about how intense cayo Academy is and how strict their team is, saying if you don't get to, like, the third round of a tournament, you're automatically kicked off the team or something like that. So real hardcore. cobra kaya. Ping pong.

Cobra kayo.

And we get to the quarter final match between wengay and cosima, and it's like, oh, shit's heating up. Here's the two elites that are Smiles rivals, so we get to see them play against each other. And wenge is talking to his coach, and for once, he kind of seems nervous because he's beating down everyone else all the time. And now he's like, I only want to get Smile because he lost on purpose. So if this guy is better than him, I'm in trouble. And then we see lost my notes. Then we see some crazy sequences of them, like, starting their first match and cosmic hitting the ball back. And it's just every time he hits a bag, it's going faster and faster, turning into lightning. And eventually the lightning morphs into a dragon, which is apparently his nickname in ping pong, like the dragon of cayo cattle.

Well, so every character has, like, a thing that represents them. So for wangi, it's a plane, and then for him, it's a dragon.

Okay.

Peco and Smile are a star and a moon. And then Sakama is just like a demon. A little sneaky, little shitty demon.

Look.

He'S like a little demon from what's it called? disenchanted? Is that what it's called?

I don't know. I didn't see that.

It's on Netflix.

So it's not like a big satanic demon. Like, it's like a little sneaky imp.

Yeah.

So that's like the symbolism of the dragon and the airplane and stuff.

They're like yakuza members. But with ping pong, like, it's interesting to watch. And I can get how invested people can get it with ping pong, but at the end of the day, it's still ping pong. I'm like, this feels a little silly.

Yeah.

So we see Wengate freaking out as he's playing, reminding himself, like, he can't lose. He got kicked off the team in China. That's why he's in Japan. He can't go back. So he's got to do better. And cozumel just is not having it. And we see different shots of cosmo like morphing and changing because we didn't really talk about it, but the animation well, we talked about the very beginning but the animation style with this really reminds me of like rotoscope. But it's not but it definitely has that feeling to it because the lines we see a lot of animation, a lot of stuff is either reused or in some shots. Anything that isn't crucial to the plot will be stationary and not move. And the stuff that needs to move does. But this is the opposite, where every line moves, even if it's not necessary. So there's this wiggle style and it's a lot of detail. We see every character's lips and we see every character's nose, which we don't see in a lot of anime. And just like, the loose line work of cosmo's body morphing in the battle or in the match against Wingue really allows itself to highlight the motion for the characters. And with it constantly moving, it allows them to be a lot more expressive with it rather than, like, grounded in reality. He doesn't actually summon a lightning dragon, but the style really AIDS to that. And it really reminded me of the heavy line work and Heavy shadows reminded me a lot of hellboy. And then it also reminded me very specifically of the Breaking the Habit music video by Lincoln Park, which is very specific, but it really reminded me that that's what got me in. As soon as I saw it, I was like, I'm into this show already, just by the style. So it really helps with the sports anime like we talked about with High Q, which is a very traditional anime style. I think this leads itself a lot better to showing the motion in motion versus, like a weird pseudo stationery, like, still shot of motion. So I really liked it.

It's very unique, very cool.

Yeah. lends itself very well to a sports show. And then we see Wengay's freaking out, and every time he tries to come back, cosmo just keeps shooting him down over and over and over. And in the end, Cosmo wins, which isn't too surprising because you lost a smile. And then we see cosma ends up fighting, facing against losing the names, losing names. sakuma in the quarter or yeah, in the semifinals. And then we don't see the matches, but we just see the two people that are playing in each match for, like, the other semifinal matches and then the final matches. And we end up seeing like, every one of the top five players the winner. And then the semifinals and the quarter finals. They were all cayo Academy students, so they were all playing against themselves. But they're all on the same team. So it's not just cozumel who's good or soccer is good. Like, the whole team is good and got to the top, so shit's legit. And then we cut back to the beach. Was this the beach with Wayne Gay and his coach, or was this just like a park?

Oh, they were just sitting outside.

They're just sitting outside. Arena okay. The dirt was either like yellow or it was like, sandy, so I wasn't sure. And then we got the cut away, that one guy at the beach earlier, so I wasn't sure. But, yeah, it's just wenge sitting on the bench with his coach. He's like an out of lockett that his mom gave him of him when he was a little kid, I guess winning his first pingpong tournament with a medal or something. He said he's always had it. His mom gave it to him when he moved away. And the coach was like, oh, when's you move away from your mom, he's like, oh, when I was eight, I got on the provisional team. I was like, shit away from your parents. He said his mom would bring him snacks on the weekends and stuff so he'd still see her, but he was living in, like, some sort of dormitory or something. At eight years old? Yeah, that's brutal.

You think a character is like a bad guy, quote unquote. But then you get to know every single one of these characters, and there's always something like this where you're just like, oh, ouch. Oh, God.

Yeah. There's rarely a character who's just a deplorable asshole for the sake of being a deplorable asshole. Like, usually everyone's got some sort of origin or history that molded them into that player they are.

Yeah, like I said, this character is zuko.

And then his sister comes out and she starts shooting lightning ping pong balls. And his coach tells wanga, he's like, no, that's okay. Your life is beginning now. You're just starting. He's like, what are you talking about? I lost the tournament. I'm like, I kicked out of the Chinese national team. He's like, no, ping pong is done. Like, tableton is done, but your life is starting now. Basically saying, like, it's not everything. You're very young. You're in high school.

You're still a minor, so maybe don't have your life figured out yet.

And then we see after the tournament, cosmopole smile aside to talk to him a bit before leaving. And he's kind of saying, like, oh, God, these teammates are useless if they can't get all the way. What's the point of having the teammates if they aren't going to challenge you and stuff? He's like, you know what that's like, right? Smile? And he's like, here, come to kyo Academy. We got state of the art equipment. The school was founded by a ping pong star, thus the statue. And then they got all of the best technology, high grade rubber that you can pick for each of your paddles that can be customized to you. And there's scientists there to study the airflow and your personal, like, so much fucking detail, like, bigger than professional sports teams.

For someone who actually cares, it would be great.

But this is smile.

This is smile. He does not care. So, yeah, he's like, why don't you come to kyokai? He's like, nah, see you next time. And just like, very dismissive, like, he's like, I tuned out the second you start talking about your school. I did not pay attention to any of that.

You said ping pong, and I stopped listening.

I shut down. And then we see it was really weird seeing all the stuff kyo Academy had, especially with everyone in the matching track suits and the shaved heads. And I was like, this is some underground science experiment shit you would find in a vault and fall out and just 1000 Ping Pong titles everywhere. Like, what happens?

They're all clones.

It feels like it because they're all shaved heads and they all look the same. So it's like, this is weary.

He loves Ping Pong.

So it just, like, really threw me off. And then we see the Kyle Academy coach kind of berating everyone. Just like, hey, five of our guys got the top position in the tournament. That's not good enough. You all have to win. And it's like, what's possible? I don't know why he was so bad. I was like, I think they all did the best that we saw. They all did the best, so I don't know why he's so upset. And then we see throughout this whole episode, we saw it was clearly a woman in a big trench coat and a big hat, sunglasses, trying to hide her identity while she's watching the game. And cosma notice her the whole time. And when the Coach is parading everyone, we see a woman with red hair fly up in a corvette. And she doesn't even say anything. She just shows up. And then cozumel walks over and the Coach is like, yes, my daughter, and gives the whole exposition for her. But she never talks. But yeah, so cozumel rides off with her back from the Champions the Tournament, and she's the coach's daughter, but then she's cousins with cosma. And then yeah, there's like then, like, her dad's the president. Or like, they're related to the I kind of got lost here with the relationship.

Her dad is the Coach, right?

Yeah.

So her dad is that guy, the Coach. And then she is also somehow related to the president of the academy.

He's her grandfather.

Yeah.

Okay, so the Coach is the president of the academy's son. Yeah. Okay. And yeah, he's like, cosmo will get a ride with her and their cousins. And then some of the teammates were like, I don't know about that. I was like, all right, that technically incest is getting questionable.

Yeah.

I wasn't sure if it was, like, the anime, like, oh, we're cousins, wink, wink, or like, oh, we're family friends, but we just call each other because.

This is they're literally cousins.

Okay, we'll see where that goes. So he rides off, and then the Coach starts parading the other teammates, being like, all right, when we get back here doing drills and all this other shit. And then we see Smile heads home. And then we see Peco sitting on the steps of the tournament crying as he does because he's lost.

Having a little silent cry.

Yeah. And that's episode four.

Yeah. So how are we feeling about ping pong.

The animation, I hate it.

Yeah, I was scared seeing the art style. At first I was like, is this ugly to be ugly? But once we saw the images in motion and we didn't really touch on it, but the opening is a true bop.

As soon as I started watching it I was like, oh, dugan is going to like this opening. It's like a cool like pop punky kind of feel.

It reminded me of Tony hawk video. I'd hear that in the Tony hawk game.

Yeah, it was just like very raw punk, but singing bomb ping bonk. The visuals definitely worked once I saw it in motion and not just still images aren't that fun to look at, but yeah, it's definitely fun. I'm interested because I thought, well, since I saw the zuko comparison, I was like, I'm sure they'll be friends at some point, but them to immediately go, so fuck ping pong, what do you want to do with your life? We're in a different country, we can explore who we are. That sounds great. I was like, oh, interesting. Okay, let's see. But yeah, I like this.

Yeah, it's definitely like it's a sports anime about ping pong. But also ping pong is just the vessel for like really cool, like coming of age stories.

Well, that's like all sports anime. You can get to the nitty gritty about techniques and different move sets and stuff within the sports itself. But it's always a metaphor for the growth of the characters and stuff that we see, we get attached to.

Yeah, I think this gets to be about ping pong a little less as it goes on.

Okay.

It like changes up a little bit. It feels different.

It becomes something else.

Yeah, it's not just doesn't get smile, it gets really down a dark path and starts cutting up rubber from the paddles and storing it in a back alley or something.

I also think that's what's good about this anime too, is it's only eleven episodes. I'm not saying you should, but you can. But you can watch it just in like one sitting, which I tend to do.

Sorry, go ahead.

No, I was just going to say I feel like it's like the perfect size for the whole story. It doesn't feel too long, it doesn't feel too short.

Yeah, we've made the comparison .4 with high Q. And I know season three of high Q is like, I think eleven or twelve episodes and that's one volleyball match. So ping pong is definitely like, we got a story to tell. We're not just going to sit on it and milk the one match for ever. So good to see.

Yeah. I will never do this again, but I will beg you guys to keep watching this. I know Brendan probably will, but do.

Get because I want you to watch.

This show so bad. You are literally over a third of the way through.

That hasn't stopped me before.

That means nothing to him.

But I keep talking about how good it is, and now you know it's a really good show. So I'll say another thing. Episode five has some of the best voice acting I've ever heard in an anime. Like, there's just a moment where the first time I saw it, it just struck me where I was like, holy shit. Like, this doesn't feel like an anime. Like, it feels like a real kid. You know what I mean?

Interesting.

Yeah. I mean, the voice acting is really good in this show anyway, but it feels very naturalistic as opposed to other anime in the first place. So I think that's reflected in the acting.

It's not stiff of like, smile the protagonist. Welcome to the Tournament of chant. Like, not very rehearsed, but yeah.

I love this show.

Me too.

I also got a lot of Animatrix vibes from the style. The style. Like I said, I very much enjoy the style, even though it is what one would consider ugly. But I see a lot of people also on Twitter will grab, like, smear frames from a show. Look how ugly this artist. Yeah, it's a fucking smear frame. It's animation. It's not supposed to be screenshoted like that. Like Duke had said, you have to see it in motion to really appreciate the style and why they chose it.

Yeah, like, wait until you get to a high intensity dramatic match rather than like, oh, they're walking upstairs and it looks a little janky. It's like, no, just wait until it's in its element.

Exactly. Yeah. Give it time to grow. Don't judge it by the first three episodes.

For sharing your shows. Your favorite shows.

I love sharing my ping pong. My tiny little balls.

Your tiny little ball. I don't think we can title it paul's Tiny Little Balls. Could we try for a title? I don't know about that one. So next week yeah.

What we have going on?

I feel like I chose a rough one with bleach earlier.

I thought you were saying, all right, I'm gearing up.

It's going to be it's bleach, too. No? And then we had the Unexpected, the sleeper hit that everyone loved. Bakkeno. So I feel like we could kind of use a wind down. I knew ping pong was going to be a good one, but it was also going to be higher energy. So I figured next week we can get a wind down. Very simple countryside, about a glass blower and his dog. The caveat is the dog is the protagonist.

Yes.

So we're going to be watching the first three episodes of Lovely Mookoooo. There's like eleven years in the name, so you have to say it like that.

I feel like this is the anime we've been waiting for.

It's a little sheepa inu that's. Just exploring a mountainside with her owner.

We say the hero appears three times. Here it is the hero appears.

Finally. It's a dog.

Well, listener, if there's a show you would like us to watch, you can send your recommendations to us. Our email is are weberry@gmail.com. Or you can reach out to us on Twitter and Instagram. Are we there yet? On both. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at Mr. Patrick dugan.

You can find me on Instagram at queen. Period Weebu, and on Twitter at queen underscore weeo boo and queen underscore weeo boo.

Art you find me on Twitter at abts. Brendan it stands for Almost Better Than Silence, which is the video game podcast I do. And we also stream on twitch sometimes at abt. Silence. I don't know. You can check that out if you want. You don't have to. It's not that big of a deal.

Pocket what's your social media, paul and.

You can find the ping pong bluray@amazon.com.

You, too can be a ping pong stand.

You, too can be like me, a.

Winner, watching ping pong twice a year.

Is that all you wanted?

That's all I care about.

Perfect partner sitting right here.

That's fine. Just kidding. I care about I understand. I understand his love for ping pong.

You share Paul with ping pong. It's not the other way around.

Yeah, I love ping pong more than anybody else.

Wow.

That's a quote from the show. It's okay.

Thank you to camille ruley for our work. And thank you to Louis zong for theme song stories off the album Beats. You can find all of louie's music at Louisong bandcamp.com. Thank you, and we hope you'll join us next week as we learn to live with anime.

We're going to go watch pingpong again now. bye.